The conference Histories of Sexualities, Gender Diversity and Queer in the Nordic and Baltic Region will be organized 25-26 October. This interdisciplinary event brings together scholars working on these fields, but it also commemorates the fifty years that have passed since the decriminalization of homosexuality in Finland in 1971. The conference is organized by  Discipline of Political history and INEQ initiative (University of Helsinki), Discipline of Gender Studies (University of Helsinki), SQS – Society of Queer Studies in Finland, and Sexuality & Democracy research project (Kone Foundation / University of Helsinki). The conference is supported by Kansan Sivistysrahasto.

The conference has two keynote lectures:

• Professor Kate Fisher (University of Exeter): ”I couldn’t find myself in history. No one like me seemed to have ever existed.” Who needs the History of Sexuality?
• Postdoctoral Researcher Julian Honkasalo (University of Helsinki): Desiring gender: care as a radical political concept in 1960s Nordic trans activism

and a keynote panel discussion on the histories of homosexualities in the Nordic and Baltic countries, chaired by Senior Lecturer Tuula Juvonen, with Associate Professor Andrés Brink Pinto (Lund University), Professor Tone Hellesund (University of Bergen), Associate Professor Uku Lember (Tallinn University) and Senior Researcher Ineta Lipša (University of Latvia) as participants.

In addition, the programme includes parallel sessions with individual presentations, pre-organized panels and a round-table discussion. The full conference programme can be accessed on the conference website.

The conference will be organized online, and it is open for all and free of charge. Please register by October 20: https://www2.helsinki.fi/en/conferences/histories-of-sexualities-gender-diversity-and-queer-in-the-nordic-and-baltic-region/practical-information#section-109195